The Impression of Deep Blue : A Cyanotype Event Myth, Fairy Tales, and Dream Tales Someone Has Been Disarranging These Roses

21ST CENTURY HERBAL 2023.4.3-2023.6.11 Artist: emma talbot curator: wells fray-smith This exhibition brings together paintings on silk, three-dimensional forms, animations and drawings made in the last three years that reflect on the power of the natural world and experiences of living in flux and transformation. Emma Talbot makes work that is about processing what it means to be alive, to think, to feel, and to notice the world in which we live. Her work is rooted in personal experience and fact, but often presents alternate realities or suggests ways to live differently. E mma Talbot, 21st Century Herbal, 2022, Acrylic on silk, Overall dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist E mma Talbot, 21st Century Herbal, 2022, Acrylic on silk, Overall dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist The central work in the exhibition, 21st Century Herbal, presents a figure experiencing the effects of eleven plants on her body while written text explains the magical or medicinal properties of those plants, and how they may help or harm us. Rosemary slows Alzheimers and dementia, while stinkweed is a toxic plant that produces amnesia and confusion. Across fourteen panels, Talbot takes us on a journey through nature of discovery full of truth, wisdom and hope, revealing that humans and the natural world are deeply connected and plants may be the key to our survival. Talbot is a storyteller with a distinctive painterly language that combines colourful, swirling lines and patterns, direct text, and a female figure who explores and navigates imagined landscapes and worlds. The figure in Talbot’s work faceless, acting as both an avatar of Talbot and a surrogate for ourselves. The imagery in Talbot’s work is direct and hand-drawn on silk, relating to her inner landscape of personal thought and emotional responses to subjects ranging from technological advancement and grief, to nature and aging. The central work in the exhibition, 21st Century Herbal, presents a figure experiencing the effects of eleven plants on her body while written text explains the magical or medicinal properties of those plants, and how they may help or harm us. Rosemary slows Alzheimers and dementia, while stinkweed is a toxic plant that produces amnesia and confusion. Across fourteen panels, Talbot takes us on a journey through nature of discovery full of truth, wisdom and hope, revealing that humans and the natural world are deeply connected and plants may be the key to our survival. E mma Talbot, 21st Century Herbal, 2022, Acrylic on silk, Overall dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist E mma Talbot, Floral hangings, 2022, Acrylic on silk, Overall dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist E mma Talbot, 21st Century Herbal, 2022, Acrylic on silk, Overall dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist EMMA TALBOT Artist Emma Talbot (b. 1969, Stourbridge) lives and works in London. She studied at the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design and Royal College of Art. Working in drawing, painting, animation and sculpture Talbot often articulates internal narratives as visual poems or associative rumination, based on her own experience, memories and psychological projections. Incorporating her own writing and references toother literary and poetic sources, Talbot’s work considers complex issues such as feminist theory andstorytelling; ecopolitics and the natural world; and pertinent questions regarding our shifting relationshipsto technology, language and communication. Wells Fray-Smith Curator Wells Fray-Smith is Curator at the Barbican Art Gallery, London. Prior to Barbican, Wells held similar positions at Whitechapel Gallery, Pace Gallery, London and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.At Whitechapel Gallery, she was the co-curator of Emma Talbot’s Max Mara Art Prize for Women winning exhibitionThe Age/ L’Età and was also the curator ofThe London Open(2022) and Helen Cammock: Che si puófare (2019). She was the curator of Real Life at Galerie Sofie Van de Velde in Antwerp, Belgium, for which she also wrote the catalogue. Wells writes extensively on modern and contemporary art, recently contributing catalogue essays on the artists Tess Jaray (2022), Secundino Hernandez (2022), Prabhavthi Meppayil (2022) and Fabienne Verdier (2020).

Monster & The Nocturnal Pollinators someone has been disarranging these roses 2023.9.9-2024.1.18 Group exhibition Curator: yang naitian & liu lin Someone Has Been Disarranging These Rosesdelves into the historical and present context of BMCA’s site –Beijige Mountain, and investigates the pivotal role it has played in the evolution of meteorological science in China.Departing from the spectral atmosphere of the museum's locus, the exhibition brings together about 20 artists,architects, and researchers from six countries to create a constellation of artworks engaging with this historicallineage andoffering different perspectives towards the omnipresent reality of climate crisis. Hu Yun, Star , 2017-2018, Meteorite, 3D print, music box, acrylic box, 60×40×12 cm, Commission by OCAT Xi’an, Courtesy of the artist, HOW Art Museum and AIKE Gallery Kadambari Baxi & Research Group,Air Drifts , 2016, HD video accompanied bydrawings, diagrams, and texts, Research group includes Janette Kim, Meg McLagan,David Schiminovich, and Mark Wasiuta, In collaboration with scientists at NASAGlobal Modeling and Assimilation Office, Maryland, US, Courtesy of the artist Beijige serves as a point of convergence for the history and reality of Nanjing and China. It weaves together various elements, including ancient myths / Daoist traditions, solar terms / agricultural activities, modern meteorological science / intellectual individuals in China's modernization process (such as Zhu Kezhen, the founder of the Central Meteorological Observatory in Beijige), as well as civil defense projects / consumer spaces, collectively producing a complex, ambiguous, and romantic environment. The museum's existing spaces further consolidate this essence, blending together mountain terrain, air raid shelters, and the "white cube" gallery environment. The exhibition seeks to portray this compressed moment through image and sound, and to extract the dynamic imagery of wind, rain, cloud, etc. It evolves from the perception of such phenomenon to the intangible existence of data clouds, and ultimately to the cultural and political weather and climate at large. Architect Naitian Yang’s choreography of the exhibition space creates an experience that negotiates with theexisting concrete structure and resonates with the oscillating cadence of weather itself. In a time when weather andclimate issues have transcended theoretical discourse and become an urgent reality, the exhibition endeavors tointegrate people and weather into the same fluid, precarious, and crucial state. The artworks within the exhibitionallude to what might conventionally be termed "bad weather", yet the binary idea of "good / bad" is no longerapplicable to our judgments of weather. Beyond a human-centered perspective, the synthesis of chaos emerges asthe norm of weather, where "good" and "bad" coalesce. It pervades every aspect of existence, whether living or not. The participating artists in this exhibition include： Ben Rivers, Zike He, Yun Hu, James Benning, James Bridle,Kadambari Baxi & Research Group, Luo Li, Ke Lin, Philippe Rahm, Ling Wen, Zhen Xu, Ming Ya, Yang Yang,Yutaka Sone, Bo Zheng, and June Lee June LEE,Dragon Temple East Lake, 2015 ~ Now, Couplet, red, paper, ink,brochure, paper, black and white laser print, saddle stitch, Dimensions variable,Courtesy of the artist Lin Ke,Download Rain No.2, 2014, Video, performing arts, performance, 2 minutes34 seconds, Courtesy of the artist and BANKMABSOCIETY Xu Zhen,8848-1.86, 2005, Single-channel digital video (colour, sound)8 minutes, Courtesy of the artist and MadeIn Gallery YANG NAITIAN Curator Yang Naitian is an architectural designer currently living and working in New York City, USA. Focusing on the sensory experiences provided by architectural structures and materials and the power relations behind their formal language, he explores the role of belief systems in the built environment. He has worked at AWP Architects in Paris and Jianmeng Studio in Beijing. At Guy Nordenson and Associates Structural Engineering Company in New York, he participated in the design and construction of a number of public cultural buildings and art projects, including Day's End, a sculpture commissioned by David Hammons for the Whitney Museum of Art, and Shenzhen in collaboration with Sou Fujimoto Architects. The Reform and Opening Up Pavilion, and the Emnauel Nine Memorial designed in conjunction with Handel Architects. His writing has been published in Karma International, Serving The People and other platforms. LIU LIN Curator Liu Lin, writer and curator, currently lives and works in Shanghai. Recently, I have focused on exhibition production and technical theory, and tried to discuss the issue of "co-working" through cooperation with creators in different fields. From 2013 to 2021, he worked as a curator at Sifang Contemporary Art Museum and initiated and implemented the "Topography" (2015-2019) project. Some of the planned exhibitions are: "Yanzhong Art Museum" (2016), "Unfinished" (2019) and "Must Dream of This Blue Tonight" (2020), etc.; he regards writing as a method of action and tries to use it in different ways. Experiments were carried out in the field of writing, and some articles were published in media such as ARTFORUM Chinese website, Art News Chinese version, Art-Ba-Ba, Wallpaper, and The Paper.

ADMISSION ADMISSION For On-site Purchases Visit the service desk at BMCA , located on the 3rd Floor of Catherine Park For Online Purchases F ree Admission Policy: Buy Tickets Children: Youth under the age of 12 (excluding 12-year-olds) can enter for free with valid identification documents. Seniors: Individuals aged 60 and over (including those who are 60) can enter for free with valid identification documents. Persons with Disabilities: People with disabilities can enter for free with valid identification documents. Note: Children under 12 (excluding), seniors, those with mobility issues, and persons with severe disabilities must be accompanied by an adult with the ability to ensure safety. The accompanying adult must enter with a ticket. Military Personnel: Active duty soldiers, veterans, retired military officers, and retired non-commissioned officers of the People's Republic of China, as well as recipients of national pensions and subsidies, can enter for free with valid identification documents. Fire and Rescue Personnel: Fire and rescue personnel (including those who are active, retired, disabled, students of fire and rescue academies, and full-time government firefighters) can enter for free with valid identification documents. Museum and Art Gallery Staff: Registered staff of both state-owned and private museums and art galleries can enter for free upon presenting valid identification documents. Free Admission Process: Present the reservation QR code and a valid ID at the service desk on the 8th Floor of Deji Plaza Phase II to activate your ticket and exchange it for a paper ticket. Entry is granted by scanning the QR code on the paper ticket.

Rock Host, Infrustructuring the Void 2024.12.06-2025.02.16 Group exhibition Exhibition curator: he zike、iris long Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce Rock Host, Infrustructuring the Void, the second installment in its annual exhibition series, “Art and Geography”. This initiative commissions curators to explore the intersection of art and geography through yearly exhibitions. This year, we have invited the curatorial duo, Iris Long and Zike He, to present an exhibition featuring seminal and recent works by 20 international and domestic artists who investigate realms of infrastructure, science fiction, and geology/environment-related topics. The exhibition also includes new works by artists who participated in the research project Under the Cloud organized by Long and He, showcasing the locality of scientific and technological infrastructure as well as its impact on the environment and our future as a quiet technology. The exhibition is developed from Under the Cloud project and its discussion on the notions of geological time, mountain types, topography, and infrastructure. It weaves a thread connecting three spatio-temporal dimensions: the air-raid bunkers in Beiqiu, Nanjing; the data centers in Guizhou; and the factories constructed in caves during Guizhou’s Three Front Movement. Expanding these narratives to a global scale, the works in the exhibition examine the mutual nesting between infrastructure and the geological environment around the world. British-Polish geologist Jan Zalasiewicz visualizes temporal and material transformation from microscopic to macroscopic scales through geological metaphors: he sees the Earth as a “Stratigraphy” machine, which operates at an extremely slow speed—so much so that it forms a geography along the vertical axis. Rock Host, Infrustructuring the Void captures this slow, vertical transformation through a variety of works, from profiling rocks, bunkers, and waterbodies to delineating clouds and vegetations that appear more fictional than real. In addition to introducing the scales of time and materials, this exhibition also questions the prevailing perception of scientific and technological infrastructures as isolated, externalized, and ultimately lifeless technological objects. Instead, it proposes their new image as a dynamic “technology-nature” continuum. Fossils, for instance, by solidifying time and reshaping their surrounding scenes, can generate unexpected humor: the porcelain tiles used in the bathroom sinks at Guiyang Longdong bao International Airport have been identified as early-Silurian Paraconchidium shiqianensis from 439 million years ago. Similarly, today’s technological constructs, such as data centers, deep-earth laboratories, and other structures hidden and embedded in the depths of natural and manmade caves may undergo unforeseen scenic transformations in the distant future. Imagining these changes allows us to build a parallel future of technology, rendering the temporality of infrastructure a captivating subject. The exhibition reimagines the gallery space within the Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art as a giant machine dwelling within rocks. Utilizing an array of recyclable materials commonly found in infrastructure, the exhibition site is transformed into a “void infrastructure” of time. Simultaneously under construction and obsolete, this “void infrastructure” rests quietly between the layers of rock strata. The exhibition will occupy both the main exhibition hall and the tunnel annex of the Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art. It will officially open to the public on December 7, 2024, and run through February 16, 2025. This exhibition is partially supported by Pro Helvetia Shanghai, the Swiss Arts Council. PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: Badel/Sarbach, Cao Fei, Chen Xiaoyi, Dennis De Bel, Duruo Wang & Zhang Wenxin, Filips Staņislavskis, Luo Shuang, Marina Otero Verzier, Monica Ursina Jaeger, Qian Dajing, Salvatore Vitale, Lithic Alliance, Tega Brain, Timur Si Qin, Himali Singh Soin,The Nomadic Department of the Interior (NDOI), Zhou Tao ZIKE HE Curator HE Zike (b.1990, Guiyang, China) is an artist who works with mediums including video, writing, performance, prints, and computer program. By incorporating personal memories into her research and fieldwork, HE Zike’s practice illuminates the interplay between time, mundane lives and the technological environment. She weaves the disorder beneath the surface of contemporary life through a narrative approach. She was a finalist for the 5th VH Award of Hyundai Motor Group, and was selected in the residency program of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council in 2023. From 2021, She has co-initiated the interdisciplinary project “Under the Cloud” which visits and studies the technological infrastructure in Southwest China. Her works have been exhibited in Cosmos Cinema, the 14th Shanghai Biennale (2023), Dream Screen at Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul, 2024) and Beijing Biennale (2022) among others. IRIS LONG Curator HE Zike (b.1990, Guiyang, China) is an artist who works with mediums including video, writing, performance, prints, and computer program. By incorporating personal memories into her research and fieldwork, HE Zike’s practice illuminates the interplay between time, mundane lives and the technological environment. She weaves the disorder beneath the surface of contemporary life through a narrative approach. She was a finalist for the 5th VH Award of Hyundai Motor Group, and was selected in the residency program of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council in 2023. From 2021, She has co-initiated the interdisciplinary project “Under the Cloud” which visits and studies the technological infrastructure in Southwest China. Her works have been exhibited in Cosmos Cinema, the 14th Shanghai Biennale (2023), Dream Screen at Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul, 2024) and Beijing Biennale (2022) among others.

Tunnel project admin@bmcanj.com Open Call for Submissions! Open Call for Submissions! Open Call for Submissions! Open Call for Submissions! The Tunnel Space is located alongside the main exhibition hall of BMCA and is a narrow space (about 3 meters wide and 20 meters long) resembling a tunnel, with one side facing a mountain. We have preserved the space's original load-bearing beams and old pipes, only renovating the walls and adding lighting tracks. This maintains the potential for various experimental interventions in this space. The "Tunnel Project" is characterized by the keywords : youthful, experimental, an d local. As an art museum, we aim to provide young artists with opportunities to showcase their creations , while also addressing the u rgency of self and locality . In this project, we do not limit the mediums of the artwork and are even more encouraging of experimental mediu ms, hoping these works will exhibit an unusual energy in this unique space. As an institution based in Nanjing, we are open to collaborating with artists related to Nanjing, but we also welcome exhibition projects with fresh ideas from all over the cou ntry . We hereby extend a sincere invitation for open recruitment and welcome everyone to submit their exhibition proposals to us, hoping we have the opportunity to assist in realizing them. In addition to the use of the space, we will provide professional staff support for the project implementation, as well as meet the equipment and construction needs of the exhibition. Requirements Application Mate rials Artwork and exhibition proposal and explanation; Artist's resume and port folio. Application Time and Method This project is open for long-term recruitment, and we welcome your projects at any time! Please send your materials to the official email: exhibition@bmcanj.com Email subject: Tunnel Project + Applicant's Name More Space Information Moisture: The space is damp, with seepage from the mountain on rainy days. Pipes: Various pipes crisscross the space, unavoidable. Windows: There are opaque windows through which the opposite vertical cliff can be vaguely seen. Columns: The space is not fully open due to intersecting columns that obstruct the view.

MEMORIES AND DREAMS: MIRó'S GARDEN 2022.12.10-2023.3.10 artist: joan Miró Joan Miró's creative style underwent transitions from Fauvism and Realism to Surrealism. During his youth, Miró lived in Paris for an extended period, where his interactions with Surrealist poets were immensely beneficial. Poetry broadened his horizons, leading him away from the Realist creative philosophy. This exhibition displays three series of Miró's original pictorial poems. In these works, poetry and painting form a whole, with painting enhancing the expressiveness of the text and the text enhancing the narrative quality of the painting. The ingenious combination of the two creates an infinite space of imagination for the audience. The flight of the lark , 1973, Mixed technique：GOUCHE AND INK ON PAPER, 30 x 25cm © Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris-SACK, Seoul, 2022 Some Flowers for Friends , 1962, Lithograph printed in color and pochoir, 41 x 32.5cm © Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris-SACK, Seoul, 2022 E mma Talbot, 21st Century Herbal, 2022, Acrylic on silk, Overall dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist Joan Miró (1893-1983) is one of the significant figures in the 20th-century Modernism art movement. As a pioneer of Surrealist art, Miró often employed colors and forms in a symbolic manner, crafting intricate compositions and fluid linear styles. He combined abstract elements with recurring motifs (such as birds, eyes, and the moon) to depict the rich and variable inner world of humanity. As an abstract artist of renown, on par with Picasso, Miró's paintings are filled with irrational artistry, with lines and colors freely flowing from the artist's brush, resembling poetry composed of dream-like associations and arbitrary wordplay. This exhibition has carefully selected 20 exemplary works created by Miró, utilizing a variety of materials including watercolor, gouache, Chinese ink, oil paint, and even textiles, showcasing the comprehensive style of Miró's paintings in a highly representative manner. Miró's themes include children, the sun, the moon, stars, birds, eyes, and ladders. The artist simplifies shapes, lines, and colors in his paintings, minimizing the elements to schematize figures and objects. In Miró's view, form is more important than color in painting; he believed that once the form is established, colors will naturally emerge. This exhibition has meticulously selected 20 exemplary works by Miró, created using a diverse range of materials such as watercolors, gouache, Chinese ink, oil paint, and even textiles. These pieces showcase the comprehensive style of Miró's painting, embodying a significant representativeness. Untitled, 1981, Oil, gouache, India ink and charcoal on paper, 54.6 x 40cm © Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris-SACK, Seoul, 2022 Behind the Mirror . Paintings on Cardboard, 1965, lithograph printed in color, 37.8 x 57.2cm © Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris-SACK, Seoul, 2022 Joan Miró Artist Joan Miró (1893-1983) was one of the prominent figures in the 20th-century modernist art movement. As a pioneer of Surrealist art, Miró often used color and form in symbolic ways to create complex compositions and flowing linear styles. He combined abstract elements with recurring motifs such as birds, eyes, and the moon to express the rich and ever-changing inner world of humanity. Renowned alongside Picasso as an abstract painter, Miró's works are filled with irrational artistry, with lines and colors flowing freely from his brush like a poem composed of dreamlike associations and whimsical wordplay. This exhibition meticulously selects 20 exemplary works by Miró, showcasing the artist's holistic painting style through various materials such as watercolor, gouache, Chinese ink, oil paint, and even textiles, making it highly representative of his oeuvre.

We can’t find the page you’re looking for This page doesn’t exist. Go to Home and keep exploring. Go to Home

diving deep for light into darkness 2022.3.18-2022.6.5 group exhibition Curator:yang tiange The exhibition "Diving Deep for Light into Darkness" takes the spatial geography and historical context of BMCA (which was once a bunker and is adjacent to the thousand-year-old Jiming Temple) as a jumping-off point for imagination, focusing on the body and the sensorial expedience in the environment, and presenting the undulating journey of the physical body sinking into obscurity and finding light in the dawn. As an extension of the museum's pre-existing setting, the exhibition space is intentionally painted obscure, with both tunnels and cloisters, in order to create a sense of direction while still being perplexing and disorienting. We feel our way through the dark bunker, wander through the gaps among the rocks, walk into the inner cavity of the rocky space, as well as penetrate the human flesh to look inward at ourselves. The exhibition distinguishes conceptually between the"bare body"and the"political body", and emphasizes the former which has a more universal meaning, namely the body with sensibility and of three chapters."Living Bodies, Unspeakable Illnesses”directly confronts the peculiarities of the body ,particularly the sick body and hidden aches: burnt faces or swollen limbs, suffering from insomnia or depression, yet leaving a glimmer of light amid the gloom."In Motion and Silence" is a collection of abstract paintings. Here, "abstraction"is interpreted as an accumulation of bodily gestures that point to a clear manifestation of spirituality. These works do not directly address the body as a subject but rather deal with the bodies and spirits of the artists behind the works:their works bear witness to a clear physical engagement, document the passage of time, present the accumulation of colors, and connect the thread of wandering lines- the art form and the creative process are the pivots between the body and the spirit."In the Wilds In the Mountains In the Sea" echoes the physical sense of being among the rocks of BMCA, presenting the people in the realm of nature and their subtle feelings in it, suggesting the state of connection and symbiosis between the body and all creatures of nature. In this context, intellectual activities such as gazing, interrogation, and investigation do not take precedence over bodily awareness such as experiencing, perceiving, and immersing. The exhibition attempts to build an organism: the most significant part is undoubtedly the artworks on display, which directly depict the body or indirectly indicate its existence; it also intends to awaken the viewer's imagination of the artists’ bodies at the time of their creation, so that the artists behind the works can be recognized; in addition, the spatial reality of the museum allows the viewers to be included in the exhibition, who is also among the bodies that the exhibition attempts to evoke and mobilize. In "Diving Deep for Light into Darkness",the triple forms of bodies interact with each other to create a chequered voyage between light and darkness. Artist: Miriam Cahn/Chen Dandizi/Duan Zhengqu/Feng Zhixuan/Owen Fu/Fanny Gicquel/Hu Wei/Lyu Zhi-Qiang/Ma Kelu/Ma Shuqing/Pejvak/Gabriel Rico/Niclas Riepshoff/Su Chang/Hiroshi Sugimoto/Wang Zhongjie/Wu Shan/Zhao Yao yang tiange Curator Tiange Yang is a Beijing-based curator and writer. He currently holds the position of curator-at-large at the Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art, Nanjing, and is enrolled in a Ph.D. in art history at Peking University. Yang has curated numerous exhibitions including Leisure of Auteur and Amateur; How many times, I have left my everyday life; Diving Deep for Light into Darkness; Contamination: Not for Perfection, but for Contamination; Buddhist Youths: United Collective Indifference, and There are Volcanoes Under the Sea at institutions including Cloud Art Museum, Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art, Inside-Out Art Museum, Goethe-Institut, Hua International and others. Yang is the inaugural recipient of the Mo Yuan: Art History Research and Writing Grant in the field of contemporary Chinese art writing from the New Century Art Foundation. His research explores issues of the body and the construction of identity, and nationalist formations in twentieth-century China and the contemporary world.

Swiss design classic 2025.02.20-2025.03.20 Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to present Monster & The Nocturnal Pollinators, a solo exhibition by renowned British artist Monster Chetwynd, from August 10, 2024. As the first institutional solo exhibition of Monster Chetwynd in Asia, Monster & The Nocturnal Pollinators presents works made by the artist from the 2000s to the present. The exhibition will systematically introduce Monster Chetwynd’s creative practice, which can be perceived through paintings, sculptures, installations, and videos selected to be presented. Moreover, some of per recent works will be on view. The exhibition will run through November 17, 2024. Monster Chetwynd, Hell Mouth 3 , 2019, Paint, latex, paper, fabric, foam, wicker, timber, glue, fixings, 305×488×337.3 cm, Installation view, Testament, Goldsmiths, Centre for Contemporary Art, London, 21 January – 03 April 2022 © Monster Chetwynd. Courtesy the Artist and Goldsmiths CCA, London. Photo: Rob Harris Monster Chetwynd, Hybrid Creature Bat , 2019, iron, fabric, cardboard, latex, paint, willow and wire, 280×367×64 cm © Monster Chetwynd. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Photo: Katie Morrison Monster Chetwynd’s multifarious practice – spanning interactive performances, film, collage, painting, and installation – interweaves elements of folk spectacle, popular culture, and surrealistic cinema. Chetwynd is known for per anarchistic bric-a-brac style performance pieces featuring handmade costumes, props, and sets. Describing per work as ‘impatiently made’, ze often re-uses cheap materials that are easy to process to create costumes and scenery that are easy to deploy and adapt, while incorporating eclectic cultural references – from Bertolt Brecht to Bugsy Malone. At the core of Chetwynd’s practice is an emphasis on the work’s collective development. This participatory impulse behind Chetwynd’s performances is at the core of per performance and film production and, as such, traverses traditional boundaries between the mediums ze employs within per practice. Informed by notions of play and the importance of playful imagination, typical binaries become shaken and flipped – ‘out of this world’ becomes ‘into this world’ and imagination might be closer to reality than it appears. Beyond the idea of absurdism, Chetwynd’s characters, sets, props and costumes embody an ever-changing image of our present and futures. Quick snippets might become permanent states, and loose views may become fixed viewpoints. Most recently, Chetwynd’s oeuvre has diverted into a new body of work informed by and developed through earlier panel paintings. Chetwynd has described the affordable medium as ‘very rewarding’ and discovered that the ‘spontaneity and gesture involved with the material lends itself to performance’. Ze draws from images, videos, and memories of previous performances for the subject of watercolor works, re-thinking and re-working them to alter the composition. Positioned alongside the large experimental paintings in costumes constructed from cardboard, glue, paint, paper, and cloth, Chetwynd bridges the gap between two aspects of practice – painting and performance – to form a singular, otherworldly performance piece. Throughout per career, Chetwynd has notably changed per forename several times, with previous names including Spartacus (2006-2013), Marvin Gaye (2013-2018), and Monster (2018 to present). Of these transitions, ze has said that ‘to choose one’s name, for me, is like casting a spell, uttering an incantation. It‘s a very economical way to bring about change.’ Monster Chetwynd Artist Monster Chetwynd (b. 1973, London, England) lives and works in Zürich. Chetwynd’s multifarious practice – spanning interactive performances, film, collage, painting, and installation – interweaves elements of folk spectacle, popular culture, and surrealistic cinema. Chetwynd is known for per bric-a-brac style performance pieces, featuring handmade costumes, props and sets. Describing per work as ‘impatiently made’, ze often re-uses cheap materials that are easy to process to create costumes and scenery that are easy to deploy and adapt, while incorporating eclectic cultural references – from Bertolt Brecht to Bugsy Malone. At the core of Chetwynd’s practice is an emphasis on the work’s collective development. Zoe Chang Exhibition Consultant As an experienced practitioner of Chinese contemporary art, she has curated and organized over a hundred art exhibitions, projects, and events both domestically and internationally. As an independent writer for art media and a curator, she focuses on the growth and renewal of the young creative ecosystem, establishing sustainable communication mechanisms, and promoting more possibilities through proactive actions.